Call to Action: Gender Equity and Rights in the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases – A Civil Society Call to Action on evidence, best practice, and learning

The burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) poses a growing threat to population health and well-being and to hard-fought progress on gender equity and women’s rights. We call on representatives of the United Nations and international bodies, governments, business, civil society, health professionals, researchers, philanthropic organisations, and the public to join a coordinated movement to safeguard the health of women, girls, and gender minorities by tackling NCDs by sharing evidence, best practice, and learning.

Efforts to improve maternal and new-born health, demographic transitions, and changes in dietary and behavioural patterns around the world have seen NCDs become the main cause of mortality and morbidity for women, killing 18 million women annually. Women and girls face a triple challenge of reproductive and maternal conditions, infectious diseases and NCDs. Around the world, girls and women living with NCDs experience specific challenges in accessing prevention, early diagnosis, treatment, and care, particularly in low-resource contexts. These include low prioritisation of women’s health within families, limited access to financial resources to cover the costs, their caring responsibilities, and restrictions on their ability to travel freely, to name a few.

Feminist solutions to addressing NCDs require an appreciation of the multiple identities and social positions women, girls and other genders hold during their lives. We need to mobilise contextual, community-owned knowledge to respond to unmet needs, reduce discrimination and support gender-equitable health interventions. We need to develop innovative forms of collaboration, harness technology, and link research to action that can support the right of women, girls, and gender minorities to participate in decisions concerning their health and wellbeing and access affordable, quality healthcare at every stage of their lives.

How can you support the call-to-action?

We call for multisectoral and multistakeholder partners to share evidence, best practice and learning that can advance progress towards SDG 3.4 and the WHO global action plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases 2013-2030, including its Appendix 3  - the updated menu of policy options and cost-effective interventions for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases  - and the NCD implementation roadmap 2023-2030.

Ahead of the UN High-Level Meetings on health that will be held during the 78th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 78) in September 2023 we set out four focus areas for collaboration to improve health services and outcomes for all women and girls.

Scale up of grassroots innovations to create equitable solutions for NCD prevention and control.

We call for examples and learning that can support the following aims. Please click here to contribute your relevant resources.

1. Recognise and support women-led, grassroots innovations that improve access to essential healthcare services, strengthen healthcare systems, foster resilient development, and have the potential to be gender transformative.
2. Establish and scale cooperative mechanisms to increase the ability of women and girls, especially those living with NCDs, to innovate as co-creators, designers, and implementers of international efforts for NCD prevention and control across their life-course.
3. Extend support, services and platforms for existing collectives and networks of women and gender minorities organised by labour, location, or social identity, bringing in a focus on health promotion and primary and secondary prevention of NCDs.

Integration of NCD services into primary health care, including through digital health solutions.

We call for examples and learning that can support the following aims. Please click here to contribute your relevant resources.

1. Implement equitable, interoperable, and cost-effective digital solutions within health systems to enable effective prevention and management of NCDs across the continuum of care (screening, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care), promote behaviour change, and improve the availability of information available to women and girls.

2. Integrate NCD prevention into existing maternal and primary healthcare programmes to lower the risk of disease transmission from one generation to the next; enhance early diagnosis and preventative treatment uptake; and support women’s lifelong health.

3. Ensure access to essential technologies and products, such as HPV vaccinations and self-test kits, as well as quality, non-judgemental care for gynaecological conditions, which may also allow for early diagnosis of conditions such as cancer, diabetes, and hypertension. Take measures to improve connectivity and access to digital devices and tools among women to empower them to avail digital health services where such services are relevant and available safely and conveniently.
4. Ensure essential NCD prevention and care services are integrated into national development and financing strategies, including those that inform official development assistance, to achieve Universal Health Coverage.

Support for the full, meaningful, and active participation of women and girls in health-related decisions, including health planning, programming, and monitoring.

We call for examples and learning that can support the following aims. Please click here to contribute your relevant resources.

1. In line with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, eliminate barriers and discrimination preventing women from participating in activities, work, policies, planning, governance and decisions that impact their health and wellbeing.

2. Identify, develop, sustainably fund, and formalise opportunities for social participation using a rights-based approach to health, including governance and decision-making roles for women and girls across policies, programmes, and resource allocation.
3. Meaningfully engage women and girls, including women and girls living with - and caring for those living with - NCDs, in the co-creation, implementation and evaluation of policies and programs, to ensure these are targeted, effective, inclusive, and equitable.

Strengthening of the evidence base on sex differences and gender inequities.

We call for examples and learning that can support the following aims. Please click here to contribute your relevant resources.

1. Commit to the routine collection and analysis of data disaggregated by sex and gender, to build a better understanding of sex and gender differences and intersecting disadvantages in the determinants of health conditions; risk factors; barriers to accessing services; pathways leading to quality care; and outcomes.

2. Fund research and implementation studies that:
   • Address evidence gaps on sex-and gender-related differences in the burden, causes and management of NCDs at different stages of the life course.
   • Assess the integration of NCD prevention and treatment into routine reproductive, maternal, child and adolescent services.
3. Address the underrepresentation of women and girls in clinical trials and research by examining barriers to participation and identifying more inclusive institutional and informational policies and procedures to encourage their participation.

This call represents an opportunity to ensure everyone has access to quality health services, irrespective of their identity. It is an opportunity for everyone, including men working to safeguard the health of women, girls, and gender minorities to formulate feminist, rights-based solutions to address NCDs, which recognise the multiple identities and social positions that women, girls, and other genders hold during their lives.